views and thoughts on topics, especially ones pertaining to christianity – with an emphasis on how most christians either ignore or discriminate against unmarried christians – and how christians have turned marriage and parenting into IDOLS and how there is no true support for sexual purity, virginity, or celibacy among christians – this is a blog for me to vent; I seldom permit dissenting views. I don't debate dissenters ————-

Sprankle is one of those moronic Non-Christians who has a stick up his ass about religion, and so he enjoys harassing and trolling religious people (Christians are usually a favored target with people like this), so he can sit back and watch them foam at the mouth or get upset over his put-downs of their faith – which doesn’t exactly make his atheism or Satanism or whatever he’s into look very good.

The following story – about Sprankle saying that God took sexual advantage of Mary – was all over social media the last day or two.

When will Sprankle Tweet something about Islam’s Prophet Mohammed being a child molester?

7 Dec 2018
God the Father fell under scrutiny Monday when Minnesota State University associate professor Eric Sprankle accused the creator of the universe of impregnating the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus, without consent.

I do agree with the author that a lot of Christians demonize all atheists, which they should not do – but to be fair, many atheists I’ve run into online have been either unbearably smug or else they are out-right hostile to anyone who doesn’t share their particular take on theism or atheism.

I grew up in Southern Baptist Churches and was exposed to a lot of conservative Christian content around the home – Christian magazines, books, TV programs, and so on. Most of them went on and on about how sinful, unwise, or wrong it would be for a Christian to marry a Non-Christian, which they refer to as the “Equally Yoked” rule.

I used to be a believer in the “Equally Yoked” rule myself, until several years ago, when I began noticing several problems with it, one being there are more single Christian women then there are single Christian men, and, I’m all the time seeing news stories of Christian men who are jailed for child molesting, wife abuse, or what have you.

So, I realized it’s far more important to judge a man based on his actual actions and how he treats me (and treats other people) as opposed to what he claims to be his religious views.

At this stage of life, I’m more comfortable now with the idea of marrying a kind-hearted atheist man than a sexist or abusive Christian one.

[Summary: a Christian woman writes in for advice because her Christian husband of 20 years now says he’s an atheist. She’s not comfortable with his atheism but doesn’t want to divorce him]

…The idea of marrying a non-Christian is so far past unacceptable [to many Christians] that it veers into genuine revulsion and anathema.

I’ve got an old binder from a marriage seminar I attended at an SBC church in my mid-teens that painted non-believers as repulsive, ugly, dirty, unkempt people–in one illustration, a hobo-like non-believer is marrying a young woman in a perfect white bridal gown.

I’ve seen countless blog posts from Christian leaders openly wondering if non-Christians have the capacity to love at all, or can even conduct themselves in an honest and compassionate way.

Devin Patrick Kelley, the 26-year-old who stormed First Baptist Church in Texas and shot and killed 26 and wounded scores more, was described by former school classmates as an “outcast” and atheist who used social media to mock Christianity.

Texas church shooter Devin Patrick Kelley was so pathetic, he tried to bribe and threatened ex-girlfriends to take him back — and he stooped so low as to date a 13-year-old when he was 18, according to former flings.

“He was very sick in the head,” Katy Landry, a former girlfriend of Devin Patrick Kelley, told NBC News. “Years after dating me he would try to bribe me to hang out with him. He ended up assaulting me.”

On Offering Up Prayers and Thoughts – and how it annoys Liberal Christians and Atheists

I had been thinking about doing a post about this subject for the past one to two years but never got around to it.

This has become a really big pet peeve of mine, and I see it all the time from liberal Christians, ex Christians, and atheists: criticizing people of faith who publicly offer up prayers or thoughts for people, especially after a national tragedy, such as a mass public shooting or a natural disaster.

By the way, I am a little confused by the heading which says that the letter write is an atheist – in her letter, she seems to say that she does believe in God but is not “as religious” as her boyfriend is.

Mutual Exclusivity on Social Issues by Liberals, Atheists, and Some Moderate Christians

Over the past two years on twitter (and on some blogs), I keep seeing some people – usually liberals, but sometimes atheists and moderate Christians – engage in this game of mutual exclusivity as concerning social issues.

They also seem to have a blind spot or two. They will point out the “sins” committed by Christians, Republicans, or conservatives all damn day long, but then ignore those very same sins when committed by liberals, Democrats, or Muslims, atheists – or whatever other special interest groups they usually pander to.

TRANSGENDERISM

For example, if you speak out in concern against CIS men using transgender bathroom policies to rape CIS women, trans-activists will say you should be more concerned about churches who harbor child sex abusers.

The fact that so many churches harbor child rapists, or handle child sex cases improperly, does not automatically make it acceptable to allow CIS men into women’s bathrooms or locker rooms under the guise of being “trans friendly.”

The two are separate topics.

Therefore, I am against this argument from some people that everyone should be more, or only, concerned about child safety at churches than they should be with child welfare at public rest-rooms or public fitting rooms.

It is not a mutually exclusive concept.

An individual can be concerned about CIS men exploiting trans-friendly bathroom rules to rape CIS women, and that same individual can also be concerned about predators using churches to victimize children.

Does Jesus Alone Really Fill That Empty Space? And: When God Acts Like An Atheist

I was wondering if anyone else reading this, who accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior (became a Christian), ever experiences a feeling that something is missing in you or your life, or if you ever feel as though there’s a hole in your heart, or if you ever feel an emptiness?

I do at times, and I don’t understand why, since I grew up hearing that everyone has this hole in their heart, and only Jesus can fill it. And, further, if you believe in Jesus, Christians say, that emptiness will go away. What if it does not? Or, what if it returns?

I’ve done the whole Jesus thing. I was a devout Christian for years and years, but at times I still feel as though something is missing.

Too Cool for School: The Ex, Quasi, or Liberal Christians (and Atheists) Who Think Their Snarkiness Against Christians Makes Them Clever (But It Doesn’t)

This post contains some vulgar language.

edited to add: I’ve already been told by two different people that this post is too long. Sorry, being concise has never been a talent of mine.

Someone also informed me that this blog post of mine has been linked to at a sub thread on Reddit (Link): here / on (Link): Reason and Faith on Reddit

Someone in that Reddit thread thinks my title of this post is “an atrocity,” but I feel it pretty much accurately sums up what I’ve seen online the last decade or more

In my faith crisis of the last few years, I’ve visited more sites, blogs, groups, and forums that are critical of Christians or Christianity. I sometimes find myself agreeing with some of their criticisms of evangelical, Protestant Christianity (sometimes not).

One of the recurrent tendencies that crops up in such blogs, forums, and groups that disturbs or annoys me (or has me doing a lot of eye rolls) are that many of the people who post to these types of groups act as though they are Too Cool for School.

Christian Post recently published this summary of Groeschel’s sermons, and I take strong issue with it, which I will explain below the long excerpts from the page – but if I didn’t blog my criticisms of this guy’s sermon, I was going to go nuts -several of his points or assumptions annoyed me up the wall:

Here are some excerpts from that page, and I will comment on this below the excerpts, which is pretty long, so please bear with me:

Pastor Craig Groeschel, senior pastor of Life.Church, has started a new series, “I Want to Believe, But…,” to address difficulties some have in believing in God.

In the series’ first sermon on Sunday, the megachurch pastor dealt with the notion that God should give us exactly what we want and when we want it.
“God is too big to be a puppet of mine,” he stressed.

Some believe in God and others don’t, but there’s “a newer category of people that are saying, ‘I wanna believe in God but I’m struggling to,'” the popular pastor said as he introduced the (Link): series to the congregation on Sunday, the 21st anniversary of the church.

I’m a Christian Married to an Atheist — Here’s How We Make It Work by S. Allen

I have a (Link): bazillion examples on this blog of Christian men who are arrested or found out for things like wife beating, child molesting, or other horrible things.

As I’ve said many times before, I’m done with the ‘Equally Yoked’ teaching, because I don’t see the sense in it.

Why should any single, Christian woman hold out for a single, Christian man, when, number one, females outnumber males in Christianity, so your chances of getting one are slim to none, and secondly, men professing to believe in Jesus does not make them marriage material.

I’m sorry to be so repetitive, but, I’d rather marry a decent, kind, loving NON-CHRISTIAN man, than marry a wife-beating, drug addicted, child- porn- watching man who professes Christ, reads a Bible, and-or who attends a church regularly.

I think in this particular case, the man started out atheist while they were dating, became a Christian after they married, but reverted back to atheism later – but their marriage is surviving.

Some of the people who left comments below her post on this other site (XO Jane) are criticizing her piece.

I grew up in a Christian household, but not a fundamentalist one. My parents were strict, but I didn’t have a problem with it.

[The author states that during her college years, she hit a faith crisis – was still a Christian but having doubts about the faith.
She signed up for the dating site “Plenty of Fish” which is how she met her atheist boyfriend Dave.
She then came completely back to her faith, felt guilty about having an “unequally yoked” relationship, but stuck with Dave. They married.
Dave became a Christian but then reverted back to atheism. The author, Sarah, and Dave later had two sons together.]

…We have been married 11 years and we have an inter-faith-ish marriage. How do we do it without having a holy war in our house on the regular? Well, sometimes there are arguments about our faith or lack thereof. But mostly we have a pretty peaceful life.

It comes down to communication, respect, and love — just like any relationship.

November 2016. (There is a moderate amount of swear words in the post below)

Some of the points in the post, in brief (the long explanation is below):

I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior before I was ten years old

I have read the entire Bible.

I spent many years reading books ABOUT the Bible (e.g., books about its formation and history)

I spent years reading Christian apologetic literature– so do NOT tell me that I “do not understand Christianity” or that I was “never a REAL Christian to start with”

I currently have doubts about the Christian faith and/or aspects of the Bible

I have not rejected Jesus Christ Himself
(he’s pretty much Christianity’s only good feature or selling point, as far as I can see at this point)

I am not an atheist

I am not a Charismatic

I am not a “Word of Faither”

I was brought up under conservative, Southern Baptist and evangelical teachings and churches

Even though conservative Christians claim to believe in the Bible, they

cannot agree on what the Bible means or how to apply it – this is a huge problem as I see it in the faith

they diminish the role of the Holy Spirit or deny Him and that He can work for Christians today, because they are “hyper sola scriptura” and have reduced the Trinity to “Father, Son, and Holy Bible,” (this is also problematic),
they usually do this because they are hyper-cessationist and paranoid or hateful of Charismatic teachings or practices

they teach that most to all of the biblical promises are not for Christians today but are only for the Jews of 5,000 years ago, there-by teaching that the Bible is NOT relevant for people today (this is also problematic)

If you are a Christian, do not act like a smug dick about any of this and immediately disregard any points I have to make about God, the Bible, or other topics, because in your view, I am a “Non-Christian who was ‘never’ really saved” -not to mention, that is not even true.
I was in fact “truly” saved, and I am / was, a “real” Christian.

No, I don’t want to enumerate a detailed list of reasons why I have doubts about God, the Bible, or the faith.If I were to provide such a list or explanation, your average Christian would only want to debate each and every point to argue me back into fully believing. (A witnessing tip to Christians: doing that sort of thing is NOT an effective way of “winning back a lost sheep to Jesus.”)

DETAILED EXPLANATION

I find that people who are both Christian and Non-Christian (and several other categories of people I bump into on Twitter and other sites) get frustrated when they cannot easily box me in.

People seem to be more comfortable with labels, but I’m not sure what label I would give myself these days.

I have briefly tried to explain my current religious beliefs on my Twitter bio, and I explain them a little more on my blog’s “About” page and have mentioned them in a post or two over the course of the last few years I’ve been blogging here.

Here is my background:

I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior prior to turning the age of ten.

That means: I believed that Jesus took my sins upon himself, he was without sin, he paid the price for my sins, and was raised from the dead three days after having been crucified – and if I believe in all that, if I put “saving faith in” Jesus (as opposed to mere intellectual assent), my sins have been forgiven by God, and I go to heaven when I die.

I read the entire Bible through when I was 18 years old, and afterwards, I read a lot of the Bible in the years after. Prior to that age, I had read portions of the Bible when younger.

I keep running into politically left wing types or touchie-feelie Christians (some of whom may be somewhat conservative, which surprises me) on social media who assume the reason I must oppose certain things, such as–

is due to some kind of personal animosity towards these groups of people.

The reason I object to, or am concerned about, things such as mass Muslim immigration or transgender bathroom bills has NOTHING to do with personal hatred on my part towards Muslims or transgender people.

I find this so frustrating that this is assumed about me from the start, and this assumption occurs constantly on Twitter and other blogs.

If you bother to get to know me, or read many of my blog posts on this blog, or stop and ask me my feelings about things (instead of JUST ASSUMING you know why I must hold thus- and- so an opinion on a given topic), you would discover I’m pretty laid back about things, more so than the people who yell at me online.

Non-church-attending Americans are generally open to talking about faith but few wonder about life after death – which is the tactic many Christians are taught to begin conversations, a new LifeWay Research study commissioned by the Billy Graham Center for Evangelism at Wheaton College finds.

Nashville-based LifeWay Research published a (Link): study Thursday that examines the types of church activities that “unchurched” Americans are interested in as well as how open they are to talking about faith.

By “unchurched” the researchers mean “those who have not attended a worship service in the last six months, outside of a holiday or special occasion like a wedding.” Surprisingly, the survey found that more than half of Americans who don’t go to church self-identify as Christians.

“It wasn’t perfect but it was wonderful, intimate and adorably awkward.”

by Kelsey Borresen

Though we’re living in a time where (Link): pre-marital sex is widely accepted, there are still many men and women who choose to stay virgins until the wedding night.Some consider waiting one of the best decisions they’ve made, while others look back on the choice as a major source of regret. On (Link): Whisper, an app that allows users to share their secrets anonymously, people reflect on the experience of (Link): saving yourself for marriage.

See what they had to say below:

[Text on one screen cap reads]

“I waited until my wedding night to have sex. My husband is terrible in bed and can’t please me at all.”

“I was a virgin until my wedding night. My husband wasn’t. Turns out, I was better at sex than he was!”

[Text on one screen cap reads]

“I lost my virginity on my wedding night. Honestly I feel like it’s been healthy for my marriage. I can’t keep my hands off my wife.”

[Text on one screen cap reads]

“I lost my virginity to my husband the morning after our wedding. It wasn’t perfect, but it was wonderful, intimate and adorably awkward, and we finished together”

[Text on one screen cap reads]

“I waited to have sex until I was married. I deeply regret that decision because on the extremely rare occasions we actually have sex, it isn’t enjoyable.”

[Text on one screen cap reads]

“I waited until marriage, so did my husband. Wasn’t a religious choice. And yes, it was totally worth it

I don’t understand people who toss in the qualifier “but it wasn’t a religious choice” when discussing things like this. I take it to mean they are trying to appeal to an increasingly secular society that scoffs at anyone being motivated by theism, religion, or spirituality at all.

I have re-listened to the podcast this evening and wanted to comment on some of what I heard.

In the program, there is a guy named Rodney who was once a conservative Christian, who drifted into liberal theology, and who now says he has a “deistic philosophy” and he says he is “agnostic about most religious questions.”

He says he has same sex attraction, and was put off to Christianity for (among other reasons):

How American conservative Christianity tends to over-identify with, or promote, the Republican Party (right wing American party), and that some preachers are too condemning of homosexual persons.

Rodney also says he does not accept the notion of an eternal Hell.

A few times, Rodney mentions that he has a deist- like view of God. He thinks all of us humans are rats, the earth is a big laboratory, and God is a scientist in a white lab coat observing us all but not intervening.

Rodney thinks if God is involved with human life, that God should do things like cause all members of ISIS (terrorist group) to drop dead of heart attacks. He does not believe that God helps people to pass school tests, find parking spaces, or cures diseases.

The show had a Christian author and guest on named Os, who replied to some of Rodney’s points.

_Some of my thoughts on the show and the topics Rodney raised._

1.) Politics and Liberal Vs Conservative Christianity

I am right wing politically and have been a Republican (GOP) my entire life.

I have very large misgivings about the GOP the last few years, though, so I’m not totally sure where I stand politically, though I do not ever see myself becoming a liberal or a Democrat.

I do agree with Rodney that too many conservative Christians conflate Christianity with the Republican party.

But then, a lot of liberal Christians or liberal Christian denominations entwine a lot of liberal beliefs and causes with the faith too, (such as support of abortion, the Democratic Party, liberalism, and homosexual marriage).

Off to the right hand side of this blog I have a blog roll. Linked there is “Unbelievable,” a podcast by a Christian guy who normally covers topics pertinent to Christian apologetics. He usually has some pretty interesting shows.

I was (am?) a life long Christian but one who’s been doubting the faith the last few years.

I have not totally left the faith itself, but there are parts of it that I’m having trouble accepting or grasping now.

At times, I am disappointed in or by, or angered by Christians, or the behavior of other Christians. That plays into some of the struggles I’ve been having with the faith.

I don’t think I can ever hop on board the Atheist train. I don’t think atheism is intellectually feasible. It seems so devoid of hope, too. And some of its adherents seem just as fundamentalist as some religious theist types. Some of the militant atheists are also smug and condescending as all get out, traits which I have always reviled.

So, this particular episode of Unbelievable looks to be pretty interesting, though I’ve not actually listened to it yet – I’ll probably listen to it later (if so, I may edit this post at a later time with my thoughts on it):

Christian author and cultural critic Os Guinness’ new book called “Fools Talk: Recovering the art of Christian persuasion” is aimed at helping Christians develop a confident and winsome approach to engaging those who are closed to faith.

He engages with ex-evangelical Rodney Wilson who has researched the reasons why evangelical Christians lose their faith in his book “Killing God” as they discuss the cultural and doctrinal barriers to embracing Christian faith.

White Christians now make up less than half of the U.S. population, largely receding from the majorities of most demographic groups, with one notable exception: the Republican Party.

According to the latest results from Pew Research Center’s Religious Landscape survey published Monday by (Link): National Journal’s Next America project, just 46 percent of American adults are white Christians, down from 55 percent in 2007.

Hypocrisy Among Christians and how it leads some to question or leave the Christian faith

I have a few other topics or news stories I wanted to blog about today and the other day, but I find myself getting sidetracked to discuss these other issues. Maybe I’ll blog about the rest tomorrow or next weekend.

This topic is (for me anyhow) rather complex. I don’t want to spend a lot of time explaining it, but it’s one I’ve seen crop up recently on other sites or in my personal life, and this will probably be another one of my long posts. Even though I have other things I wanted to do today, like bake a batch of cookies.

Whether Christians like it or not, some Christians, including lifelong Christians such as myself, are either considering leaving the faith, or have done so already, and all because the hypocrisy they see in self professing Christians.

ME ON TWITTER. (@sololoner2) I AM NOT NECESSARILY IN AGREEMENT WITH THE VIEWS OF ALL ARTICLES I TWEET OR RETWEET. SOMETIMES I ONLY AGREE PARTIALLY WITH SOME OF THE CONTENT I TWEET. ON OCCASION, I TWEET OR RETWEET VIEWS I TOTALLY DISAGREE WITH